Guide to PIO, NRI and OIC

Monday, 14/11/2011

http://dailypioneer.com/nation/19541-guide-to-pio-nri-and-oic.html

Realising this void in law that fails to effectively cater to the Indian diaspora community comprising 30 million settled across 180 countries, two Indian lawyers have brought out a comprehensive guide demarcating each category of Indians settled abroad, their rights, and the jurisdiction to be exercised by foreign and Indian courts for protection of their civil and criminal rights.

The book titled Indians, NRIs and the Law authored by Chandigarh-based lawyers Anil Malhotra and Ranjit Malhotra has been the fruit of six years of extensive research, practice and deliberation in dealing with issues relating to illegal immigration, broken marriages, custody battle, maintenance, inter-country adoption, surrogacy and forced abduction of children from their parental homes.

Releasing the book at the British High Commission on Wednesday, India’s former Attorney General and legal luminary Soli Sorabjee said, “When Government comes out with these terms NRI, PIO, OIC, frankly speaking, even I am not aware of them. These are uncharted territories which require research. And this book explains complex issues with remarkable clarity.”

This book is the third of a series released by the same authors, having recent commentaries by Malhotra brothers on aspects concerning voting rights for NRIs, steps to counter human smuggling, the contentious demand for a Uniform Civil Code, and real life tales of marriage, divorce and adoption relating to NRIs as a guide for development of law.

Speaking to The Pioneer, Anil Malhotra said, “The need of the hour is to evolve a NRI jurisdiction. There is a sizeable chunk of Indians who send their remittances to India. Do we just take their euros, dollars and render them helpless in foreign lands.” While a start has been made by providing voting rights to NRIs, Malhotra feels it is “elusive”.

NRIs constitute 11 million of the Indian population abroad. The chunk of 19 million is of OICs who enjoy multi-entry life-long visa to enter India but no political or voting rights. Again, the NRIs must visit their constituency back home to cast votes and cannot use postal ballots making the right futile, Malhotra added.

Sir Richard Stagg, the British High Commissioner to India, who received the first copy of the book complimented the Malhotra brothers for providing frequent legal assistance to the British High Commission on issues related to Indians abroad. The authors also serve on the panel of other Commonwealth countries besides Consulates throughout India.